NEWS YOU CAN USE: Tips From 4 Home Brewers Who Turned Pro.

SPACE: NASA identifies three asteroids for potential capture.

PRIVACY? THAT’S FOR PRESIDENTIAL COLLEGE TRANSCRIPTS, NOT FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: CFPB’s data-mining on consumer credit cards challenged in heated House hearing.

MY COLLEAGUE DEAN RIVKIN TALKS ABOUT truancy litigation on Your Weekly Constitutional.

IT’S A CLOWN POLICY, BRO: Obama’s Foreign Policy Legacy: Anti-Americanism is back in Egypt and Germany.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 127.

CHANGE: Once dismissed by the GOP establishment as a gadfly, Paul is starting to look a lot like the leader of his party — and his enemies are panicking.

“SMART DIPLOMACY:” Obama’s “Red Line” Remark Was Not A Gaffe, It Came From Hillary.

REVOLVING DOOR: 15 Journalists Have Joined Obama Administration.

Whether the number is 15 or 19, the fact that this many so-called journalists from outlets as influential as CBS, ABC, CNN, Time, the Washington Post, Boston Globe, and the Los Angeles Times want to work at the very same administration they are supposed to hold accountable, is not only troubling, it also explains a lot.

Why would anyone enamored enough with an Obama administration they want to go work for, do anything that might make a potential employer uncomfortable — you know, like actually report on ObamaCare and the economy honestly, or dig into Benghazi and the IRS?

The media is left-wing and crusading enough without the potential of a cushy government job being held out as a carrot.

And don’t think the Obama administration isn’t doling out these jobs for a reason. What a wonderful message to send to the world of media: Don’t go too far, don’t burn a bridge, don’t upset us too much and there just might be a lifeline off the sinking MSM ship.

And obviously it is working.

On top of this problem, you have a number of top news network executives related to top Obama officials, many of them at the center of the Benghazi scandal – which also explains a lot.

Journalists, Journolists, whatever.

TOM BLUMER: This Depressing Economy: It’s far closer to the dreadful 1930s than you might think.

ACTUALLY, IT’S JUST ANOTHER THING THAT THE EXCEPTIONAL AMERICA HAS DONE: ‘We Made It’: Humanity Has Arrived at Interstellar Space. But sure, let the rest of humanity share the credit . . . .

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Also, deals on Digital SLRs.

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MEH. I DON’T THINK PODHORETZ should have apologized. Marxists are just Nazis with better PR. People should be as ashamed of Marxism as of Nazism, and the only way that will happen is if other people shame them. And don’t apologize.

UPDATE: Brad Thompson on Marxism. (Video).

BILL WHITTLE: Afterburner: Umbrella Men.

CHANGE: NBC/WSJ poll: GOP on the rise.

CHANGE: What Happens When You Don’t Have To Join A Union? Teachers in Wisconsin’s third-largest school district vote to quit. “Today, teachers in Kenosha, Wis., voted to decertify their union, the Kenosha Education Association, by a margin of nearly two to one. Only 37 percent of the teachers opted to retain the union in an election made possible by the labor reforms enacted under Gov. Scott Walker.”

WE SHOULD PROTECT JOURNALISM, NOT JOURNALISTS: Senate Panel OKs Measure Defining a Journalist.

Related: The Senate Judiciary Committee approves a media shield bill to keep ‘real reporters’ from having to testify on their work. Note, however, the “national security” exception, which largely negates the protection anyway.

And my general thoughts can be found here.

I SUPPOSE HILLARY WANTS THE BAD NEWS OUT NOW, SO SHE CAN CALL IT “OLD NEWS” IN 2016. BUT THIS IS PRETTY BIG AND PRETTY BAD. Investigators probe Jeffrey E. Thompson’s possible role in Clinton’s 2008 campaign. “Federal investigators are probing Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign as part of an effort to expand their case against a D.C. businessman alleged to have financed below-the-radar political operations, people familiar with the investigation said. The businessman, Jeffrey E. Thompson, allegedly provided more than $600,000 to fund secret get-out-the-vote efforts to help Clinton in at least four primary states. Prosecutors do not expect to pursue a separate criminal case against Clinton’s campaign, these people said.” Well, not while Eric Holder is Attorney General, certainly.

SPYING: NSA disguised itself as Google to spy, say reports.

UPDATE: NSA Scandal Could Move Up from Backseat with Congressional Push. I’m most interested in finding out whether there has been political abuse of NSA information.

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: The Hill: GOP lawmaker calls for criminal penalties against IRS’s Lerner. “Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) on Thursday called for criminal penalties against Lois Lerner, the former director of exempt organizations at the IRS, for lying to Congress about her involvement in the IRS targeting scandal.”

Related: Emails show IRS’ Lois Lerner specifically targeted tea party. “That email suggests that agency employees knew they had gone overboard in their scrutiny — despite top IRS officials telling Congress that there was no special scrutiny of conservative groups.”

JAMES TARANTO: Rules for Russians: Putin takes a page out of Alinsky.

Putin’s piece is aimed at influencing American public opinion for the purpose of undermining the effectiveness of American power. It deviously reinforces both dovish and hawkish arguments against the administration’s Syria policy. It reminds the doves that military action against Syria goes against everything they believe–and that Obama as a candidate claimed to believe. It reminds the hawks that Obama has shown no inclination or capacity to lead a serious military effort.

Washington’s responses have been pitiful. “That’s all irrelevant,” CNN quotes a White House official as saying: “[Putin] put this proposal forward and he’s now invested in it. That’s good. That’s the best possible reaction. He’s fully invested in Syria’s CW disarmament and that’s potentially better than a military strike–which would deter and degrade but wouldn’t get rid of all the chemical weapons. He now owns this. He has fully asserted ownership of it and he needs to deliver.”

In his op-ed, Putin even disputes that the regime used poison gas. “There is every reason to believe it was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists.” He isn’t committed to disarming the regime but to keeping it in power–a goal that is served by undermining whatever shred of resolve America might have had to act. . . .

Because America is so much mightier than Russia, the American presidency is a much stronger position than the Russian presidency. But a strong man in a position of weakness, if he is ruthless about taking advantage of his adversary’s vulnerabilities, can get the better of weak man in a position of strength. Saul Alinsky understood that, and so does Vladimir Putin.

Well, Putin does study judo.

MICHAEL BARONE: Illuminating observations on the financial crisis.

Two Bush administration appointees, Director of the Economic Council Keith Hennessey and Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Edward Lazear, have prepared an interesting paper with 19 observations on the financial crisis. You can access their summary or the pdf of the paper.

I found a couple of their observations particularly interesting. They link the financial crisis to a large inflow of capital into the United States in the mid-2000s–a contrast to the usual pattern in which capital flows out from rich countries to poorer countries. As a result, they write, “cheap credit made risky investment seem profitable.” Risky investment particularly in mortgage-backed securities, which government regulations treated as low-risk investments, incorrectly as it turned out.

Another interesting point. They contrast what they call the “domino theory” and the “popcorn theory” of financial shocks. The two theories produce different government responses. If you believe in the domino theory, you rescue one financial institution lest its failure lead to loss of confidence in others or to the failure of its counterparties. If you believe in the popcorn theory, you believe that the cause affects all or many financial institutions, and saving one does nothing to prevent the failure of others.

Interesting.

SPYING: When it mattered most, invasive surveillance programs didn’t work, say reporters.

ROLL CALL: Decisiveness Overrated? White House Thinks Yes.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney defended his boss Thursday after a blistering few weeks of criticism in Congress and elsewhere over his handling of the Syria crisis.

Carney said the American people “appreciate a president who doesn’t celebrate decisiveness for decisiveness’ sake.”

Well, okay then.